Description: This paper focuses on the role of holism in enterprise risk management ERM. The performance measure known as market consistent embedded value is discounted for being overly reductionistic. The concept of an economic capital charge or credit is seen here as a potential bridge from the reductionistic to the holistic approach. It shows some promise for achieving holism, but falls short.

Description: This paper develops credibility using a longitudinal data framework. In a longitudinal data framework, one might encounter data from a cross-section of risk classes towns with a history of insurance claims available for each risk class. For the marginal claims distributions, we use generalized linear models, an extension of linear regression that also encompasses Weibull and Gamma regressions. Copulas are used to model the dependencies over time specifically, this paper is the first to propose using a t-copula in the context of generalized linear models. The t-copula is the copula associated with the multivariate t-distribution like univariate t-distributions, it seems especially suitable for empirical work. Moreover, we show that the t-copula gives rise to easily computable predictive distributions that we use to generate credibility predictors. Like Bayesian methods, our copula credibility prediction methods allow us to provide an entire distribution of predicted claims, not just a point prediction.

Description: ongoing discussion of the proper interest rate to use in discounting liability cash flows to reflect credit risk of the insurer in a fair value accounting system

Description: Highlights of Society of Actuaries research efforts in the financial services practice area.

Description: Investment Fallacies: The "Dollar Bill" Fallacy

Description: The classical approach to life contingencies has treated actuarial functions as fixed quantities. In point of fact, these functions really represent the mean or expected values of random variables which are functions at the length of time to death of a life aged x. In this paper, we will present some examples of this approach. Talk given at the thirteenth annual Actuarial Research Conference held at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, September 1, 1978.

Description: Discussion of Human capital and its implicit asset and liability cash flows how insurance companies could help measure and provide products to help match up the timing of those cash flows. From Asset-Liability Integration, M-FI02-1.

Description: Management's goal is to continuously optimize the economic value of the firm, subject to regulatory constraints, with the use of financial valuation of the firm’s balance sheet. Both the assets and liabilities can be perceived as derivative securities. This chapter discusses a variety of financial economics issues with this common theme. From Asset-Liability Integration, M-FI02-1.

Description: Update on accounting and capital/RBC issues subsequent to tax reform.

Description: The investment risk generated by a stochastic interest rate is recognized as often the greatest risk associated with a whole life or retirement policy. Recent research has investigated the mathematics of this risk when the interest rate follows a stochastic process and the time to death is considered to be random. In this paper we focus on the use of the zero coupon bond as an investment instrument to fund a whole life policy. It is unlikely that a company will entirely fund a particular single policy with a zero coupon bond.